The NX20 is Samsung's top-end mirrorless camera, but it doesn't perform as well as its less-expensive sibling, the NX1000—or other models in its price range.

The Samsung NX20 ($1,099.99 direct with 18-55mm lens) is the top-end camera in the NX compact interchangeable lens series, but despite having a built-in EVF and flash, doesn't perform as well as the entry-level NX1000 or competing high-end mirrorless cameras. Its EVF and image quality lags behind that of our Editors' Choice Olympus OM-D E-M5, but the NX20 does excel at Wi-Fi implementation, something that the competition lacks.

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Design and FeaturesThanks to the built-in EVF, the NX20 looks more like a sized-down SLR rather than a larger point-and-shoot. It measures 3.5 by 4.8 by 1.6 inches and weighs 12 ounces. The Sony Alpha NEX-7, which also has a built-in EVF and flash, is a bit more compact, at 2.75 by 4.75 by 1.7 inches and 10.3 ounces.

In addition to taking cues from the SLR form factor, the NX20 puts a great deal of control at your fingertips. Physical buttons control Metering, Exposure Compensation, Movie recording, Drive Mode, and ISO—there's even a Depth of Field Preview button on the front of the body. A mode dial and a standard control wheel are located on the top plate, behind the shutter release, and a point-and-shoot style rear control wheel lives on the rear of the camera. The viewfinder is located right behind the lens mount, as are the hot shoe and built-in flash.

A feature unique to the NX series is iFn control. A programmable button on the kit lens allows you to adjust some shooting settings using the focus ring. Give it a tap and scroll through available functions, you can add or subtract the ones you'd like to adjust via the camera's menu. It's an innovative feature that gives new purpose to the manual focus ring in a world where most shooters rely entirely on autofocus.

While it's usually an add-on for lower-end mirrorless cameras, an EVF is a must for models that break the $1,000 price point. Unfortunately, the LCD that Samsung uses in the NX20 just doesn't match the quality of the stunning LCD finder built into the Olympus E-M5 or the OLED EVF that Sony uses in its NEX-7. It's bright and sharp enough in good light, but is downright murky and choppy in dimmer environments. The rear AMOLED display is much better. The 3-inch articulating screen is sharper than its 614k-dot display would indicate, and appears to refresh faster than the EVF.

Like other recent Samsung cameras, the NX20 is equipped with Wi-Fi. It's one of the few compact interchangeable lens cameras to offer this feature, and the Wi-Fi experience is one of the best you'll find in any camera. It's very easy to transfer photos to your iOS or Android device via the free MobileLink app, and you can also control the camera via the Remote Viewfinder application—also free for iOS and Android. If there's a hotspot available you can post videos and photos directly to Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, and Photobucket, email photos, backup to the Microsoft SkyDrive cloud service, transfer to a Windows PC, and beam images to a Wi-Fi-equipped Samsung TV.

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About the Author

Senior digital camera analyst for the PCMag consumer electronics reviews team, Jim Fisher is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he concentrated on documentary video production. Jim's interest in photography really took off when he borrowed his father's Hasselblad 500C and light meter in 2007. He honed his writing skills at re... See Full Bio

Samsung NX20

Samsung NX20

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